Slip Alley III

Jack steps into a bar,
faded leather sofas
wallpaper once flocked.

“A glass of your best Shiraz, please”,
he stares into dark ruby depths,
trying to remember
how he came to be here.

A rustling in his pocket,
an embossed envelope,
he opens it
and reads the contract:
For each rival you eliminate
you shall receive
ten thousand dollars.

Jack drains his glass, stands,
cracks his knuckles,
saunters to the ATM,
ten thousand dollars
deposited today,
he flips a coin: heads.

He leaves, walks
picking his way
past silver coins of the moon
caught in oily puddles.

He wonders how the John Doe
had been his rival.


Pond Idyll

Dragonflies break
the skin of stillness
disrupting inertia.

Tadpoles drop tails,
clamber on rocks
lungs screaming
for the place
where the sky
meets water.

A moving miasma,
mosquitos and midges
flee diaphanous wings.

Green lotus leaves
ride rippled shadows,
frogs whistle to the sun,
a water rat sparkles
feasting on pollywogs
and tales left behind.

OpenLinkNight ~ Week 41


Through a Misty Window

Finding a way
through a misty window,
I draw a line
with my finger
on the cold glass.

A cinegraph video I made is below – it goes with the poem 

Through a Misty Widow


Rattles

A damselfly flits
between the synapses
of his mind
veering between
continents of glory
where he longs to be…
then profound
dissatisfaction,
he searches
for a talisman
to make himself
disappear.

A random
arrow from
the sun’s bow
strikes his forehead,
dissipates the mist,
he feels alive.


Slip Alley II

Jack stands on the corner,
a vague recollection bending his mind,
a woman, platinum blonde,
hourglass figure, black suede pumps,
Chanel red lips
and a waft of subtle expensive tuberose,
an incongruous detail
given her Eastern European accent;
he expected something
more obvious like Poison …

A wind picks up cigarette packets,
manically tosses them into the air,
dust motes dance a fandango with moths
in the penumbra of a fluorescent street light.

Blue and white lights strobe,
breaking the shadows, wailing,
then silence but for the sounds
of an urban night.

Two suits and a skirt slam
three doors gathering
around the John Doe
like buzzards,
one flashes a camera, over and over,
the other suit blathers on a phone
stabbing the air with his fingers.

Jack
stands mesmerised
by the crime scene tape unfolding,
melting his spine into the brick wall;
he rubs his new finger print whorls
over the unfired piece in his pocket,
again he looks at his contract,
he’s been handsomely paid
without any effort.

The skirt snaps on thin latex gloves,
prods at the ooze in the gaping hole
where the blood fell out
with cotton buds,
screwing them into cylinders,
carefully. She stands arching her back,
looking up and down the alley
for something or someone
out of place.

Jack watches her look
right through him…

The skirt spots a woman gawping in glee
with a  dark pink collagen mouth,
thinks of a blown up rubber doll,
and wonders whose fantasy is that.

Jack walks away, invisibly.


Slip Alley I

An apartment window opens,
an alley in the heart of Melbourne,
people bustle down the centre,
some stop for coffee at cafe,
all seem to be carrying phones.

The sun is still low.
Sveta looks down,
stretches aware of every pore
in her fingers and toes.

A man catches her eye.
She calls him Jack.
He leans against a lamp post
in the shadows
wearing sunglasses.

Sveta clatters
down Art Deco stairs.
She slinks towards Jack
whispers conspiratorially,
“You have a choice,
a game of chance,
leave now
all your obligations
shall be discharged.
You will be completely free.”

Jack looks at Sveta
with a deep recognition
and leaves.

Jack stands at the corner
the sky deep azure
blood streaked.
A body lies crumpled,
leaking ooze, he thinks,
“Why am I still here,
what have I done today?”

He slips his hand
to his inside pocket
feels a large envelope.
Inside is the contract, signed.

For

Open Link Night ~ Week 39


Silk Umbrella

Two crows huddle on a wire
waiting for the gathering flock,
train passengers walking by
march to illusions of a clock.

I stroll with my silk umbrella
kittens dance across the sky,
raindrops rush to stick together
flowing through the gutters high.

In my heart, soars my faithful friend
helping me with piercing eyes
to penetrate entrapping  bends,
tangled tendrils of surprise.

Puddles shimmer with mandalas,
intermittent sunburst  stars,
I pick along parabolas
dodging splashing speeding cars.


Strident

A Portrait of Dissatisfaction 

In a dudgeon, eyes twitching,
she stomps through
a lively shopping strip
on a hazy Sunday morning,
displeasure bubbling
through her scrawny hands.

Aromas of coffee
waft  from a side walk cafe,
a hum of phatic words connect
into smiling conversations.

She tugs a lock of hair
escaping her tight chignon.

She spies familiar faces,
a cosy trio chatting,
eggs and bacon sizzle
in the background,
at the crossing
a car honks in frustration.

Three pairs of eyes lock
in resignation as they spot
the woman.

She sits and greets her friends,
a rictus smile with wringing hands,
delighted
with her serendipitous
encounter.

Her words hammer,
six eardrum anvils,
three faces wilt;
the conversation shrivels
as she poaches
each topic for her own,
grist for her strident soliloquy.


In the Gyre

Tracey Grumbach

Image with kind permission by Tracey Grumbach

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Falcons fly
through the gloaming
oscillating double gyres
light and shadow
caught in time

For D Verse Poetics: New view for you


Book Spine Poem 1

I was casting around for an idea for today’s poem for National Poetry Writing Month and came across a book spine poem by Chris Galvin. You can read hers here.

I loved this idea and thought I would try my own and following Chris’s lead I looked around my bookshelves and found three book titles that seemed to work together as a haiku (well to me anyway).

From earth to beyond the sky
dwarves and jesters in art,
the magic mountain

with humble thanks to Evelyn Wolfson, Erica Tietze-Conrat and Thomas Mann.


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